As in World War I, we have seen Army aviation reach the brink of war without being fully prepared. Again we have seen our military leaders and aircraft builders roll up their sleeves and go to work. However, we have never seen anything to equal the development of our Army Air Forces.

From a force which numbered hardly more than 100,000 men and a handful of airplanes at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Army Air Forces have grown to be the world’s greatest aËrial striking power. On December 7, 1941, Army aviation had 3,000 combat planes, only 1,157 of which were actually fit for first-line duty. In all United States territory we had only 159 four-engined bombers. The Curtiss P-40 was our only fighter in production in any quantity.

Less than three years after Pearl Harbor the Army Air Forces could send out 1,000 four-engined bombers on a single raid. Eight or nine hundred fighters could accompany them as escorts. More than 200,000 warplanes have been built in this country since Pearl Harbor, and the Air Forces can boast of thousands of planes instead of hundreds of them. Army Air Forces’ bases are in operation over the entire globe.

Complete airfields have been carved out of jungle and Arctic wastes. These airfields are equipped to keep our warplanes in perfect repair without the loss of time from combat duty. To build and equip these fields, millions of tons of materials have been transported thousands of miles. More than two million men have been trained to fly our planes and to keep them flying. Our great training system took thousands of green young men from civilian life and trained them in the several hundred skills necessary to keep our planes in safe fighting trim. Air Forces men work in every sort of climate, from the frozen north to the steaming jungles of the South Pacific. The Air Forces experts at Wright Field developed clothing, materials, and equipment to keep our planes in flying and fighting condition regardless of climate or weather. The training, equipping, and development of personnel and matÉriel for the giant United States Army Air Forces is truly a modern miracle.

Between the years 1943-1945 we saw our air strategy, planned years ago, put into deadly effect under the leadership of the men who originated it. Only General “Billy” Mitchell failed to live to see his ideas at work in defeating the Nazis and the Japs. The United States Army Air Forces today represents American air power, just as he prophesied many years ago.

The very best proof of the splendid development of Army aviation is the box score built up by World War II aviators against our enemies. From December 7, 1941, to January 1, 1945, they destroyed 29,316 enemy aircraft and dropped 1,220,000 tons of bombs on enemy territory. Our losses in this period were but 13,491 planes. This, it should be remembered, was against enemies who had been preparing for years with the purpose of defeating us.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the commercial airlines of the United States were operating 341 transport planes. Almost at once the Army and Navy began to take over transport planes from the airlines for war service. The Army organized the Air Transport Command. This new branch of the Air Forces, under the command of Major General Harold L. George, a former Air Plans officer, started in the Spring of 1942 in a one-room office with a personnel of three men. Since that time the Air Transport Command has grown to be the world’s largest airline. In addition to operating Army transport planes, the Air Transport Command contracted with the country’s major airlines to fly Army men and materials. Thus many of the transport planes which in peacetime flew over our countryside went into war service and began to fly over distant lands. All the major airlines contributed planes and crews to the vital needs of war. DC-3’s, which a few weeks before had been flying between our big cities, began to fly over oceans and mountain ranges in every quarter of the globe. At the start most of the planes used for Air Transport Command cargo were Douglas DC-3’s and DC-2’s and a few Boeing Stratoliners. The new Douglas DC-4’s being built for the airlines when war began went right off the production lines into service for the Army or Navy. The Navy also developed their own air transport service and operated in a manner similar to the ATC. This group was known as the Naval Air Transport Service or NATS. The Army Air Transport Command operated its own weather stations, radio ranges, and airfields in the same manner as the commercial lines did in peacetime. Planes flew vital war cargo and personnel on systematic airline procedure. Millions of miles were flown daily by planes rushing tons of men and materials to the far-flung battlefronts of the world. Practically every bit of matÉriel taken into China during the first three years of war was flown in over some of the worst flying terrain in the world. The work of the Air Transport Command, the Naval Air Transport Service, and the major airlines has been one of the truly magnificent jobs of the war. Pan American’s first transatlantic competitor, American Export Airlines, started its first service in 1942 flying wartime cargo.

The research and safety devices developed in peacetime by our commercial airlines played a tremendous part in the success of our world-wide wartime transport service. Not only did the airlines furnish planes and crews for the war effort, but they also set up schools and trained hundreds of transport pilots, crews, ground service men, and operations men for the military transport service.

The experience gained in operating such a great global air transport system has not only helped materially to win the war, but will be invaluable in expanding peacetime air transport and cargo service. New methods of handling cargo of all weights during the war will speed the development of postwar air cargo service. The world-wide experience of the transport crews will be valuable in developing postwar air travel to distant lands. Hundreds of new air crews trained for war service will be available for the great expansion of commercial aviation in early postwar days.

Forty-two years after the birth of the airplane, we see aviation on the threshold of a great new era of progress. Fighting planes with a speed of nine miles a minute are an actuality. A giant transport plane, capable of carrying 100 passengers, has flown across the continent in six hours. This means that a passenger may eat lunch in New York and dinner in California. It means that postwar air travelers will become accustomed to flying at the speed of our 1939 fighting planes. Air travelers soon will be crossing the country at a speed of eight miles a minute. Boys and girls reading this book will, a few years from now, marvel that we even got excited over the eight-mile-a-minute airplane.

The year 1944 saw a twelve-and-one-half ton fighter go into action on the war fronts. This plane, the Northrop P-61 Black Widow night-fighter, is one of the most powerful airplanes yet to go into action. Powered with two 2,000-horsepower engines, the P-61 flies at 400 miles per hour. Equipped with radar and powerful guns, it can search out an enemy plane at night and destroy it.

The new Bell P-59 Airacomet is America’s first jet-propelled fighter. Its performance has amazed expert test pilots. It has no propeller (note diagram below), and the pilot hears no engine roar or propeller scream. He feels no vibration. Yet he whizzes along at a tremendous speed which is still a military secret. This lack of vibration reduces pilot fatigue, adding hours to his safe flying time.